peshawar                 -             Peshawar High Court on Tuesday asked the federal and KP governments to submit reply regarding the Judicial Inquiry Commission over kidnapping and killing of a journalist, who used to work for The Nation from North Waziristan.

The bench comprising Justice Lal Jan and Justice Syed Atiq Shah admitted a writ petition for initial hearing in which the petitioner requested the court to make public the inquiry report about the killing of journalist Hayatullah in 2006. The High court issued notices to the federal and provincial governments to submit their response in the court.

Hayatullah belonged to Mir Ali tehsil of North Waziristan and worked for The Nation and an Urdu newspaper as well. He had published a news report of drone attack in North Waziristan in 2005 and according to his relatives, he was receiving threatening phone calls ever since. 

In December 2005, he was kidnapped and later his hand-cuffed dead body was found in June 2006.

Upon the demands of journalist unions, the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz had ordered a judicial inquiry into the case. The judicial commission interviewed senior journalists, relatives of the deceased, security personnel and officials of North Waziristan administration and subsequently submitted a 32-page report to the provincial government.

Through lawyers Abdul Latif Afridi and Tariq Afghan advocate, Hayatullah’s brother Ihsanullah filed the petition, requesting the PHC to make public the Judicial Commission report, which will make clear the reasons behind the kidnapping-cum-murder.